Ex-music minister pleads guilty to sex crimes

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Former Clinton High School choir director and music minister John Langworthy has pleaded guilty to five of eight counts of gratification of lust.

Langworthy enter the plea during a hearing in Hinds County Circuit Court on Tuesday.

Langworthy was accused of molesting five boys between the ages of 6 and 13 between 1980 and 1984. The incidents happened while Langworthy was babysitting each of the children at his sister’s home in Jackson and at his dorm room at Mississippi College, according to the indictments.

In 2011, Langworthy confessed to the Morrison Heights Baptist Church congregation that he had “sexual indiscretions with younger males” prior to moving back to Clinton.

Langworthy was given five, 10-year sentences. All of the prison time was suspended.